The writing continues at my snail’s pace – the real danger when you’re trying to maintain a writing career while working a 9-5 is that by the time you finish your contemporary, it’s a historical. But it is coming along, and not too shabby in spots, if I do say so myself.

I’ve gotten to the end of Act 1, and now – well, now I’m kinda stuck. I know what I want to do next and where I want to send my characters, but it involves another time killer – research.

The first book I wrote I did tons of research and loved it. But I had tons more time. My job was different back then, and I had time to kill at work. Most of that first manuscript was written at work, in fact. But now I have a lot more responsibilities and zero time for writing. Bummer, huh?

But I face another dilemma, though I think I’ve solved the problem. I’m going to submit this to agents as a proposal while I finish it. I am writing the query now, though I am terrible at writing blurbs. So it takes me some time to get it to where I like it. When I first started wanting to write professionally, the big trend was the “high concept” plot. You know, such-and-such meets something-or-other. I never figured out how that worked.

But now, as I put together this query letter, I realize I finally did it. This novel is totally Highlander meets Ghost Hunters with a hint of Romancing the Stone. But there’s no way I’m putting that in a query letter to an agent. Firstly, I think it implies that I cannot come up with my own ideas and have to borrow from someone else. Secondly, I just don’t think it sounds professional. I’m not even sure that’s in vogue anymore.

Then there’s the truthful approach – while I was working on a book, my life became traumatic enough that I actually wondered if the darned thing was cursed. It isn’t, of course, but there were enough coincidences that it made me ask “what if” – the questions that leads to most of my storie.

So what do I write in the query? II probably won’t go with either approach, to be honest. But that blurb writing – man, I need some serious practice.